Single Wafer, Anisotropic Etching of Polysilicon with C12/SF6 and Trielectrode Reactor Operation

Abstract

A totally anisotropic, highly selective dry poly etch process has been developed that is capable of etching sub-2.0 micron linewidths.Doped poly etch rates of 10,000 A/min.are obtained using C12-only chemistry.Standard novolac or bilevel photoresist is used, depending on the lithography requirements.Anisotropy is achieved without the use of carbon-containing gases; as a result, minimal proximity effects are observed between dense and stand alone etched lines.Wafer maps of etched linewidths on 4-inch wafers are presented, showing mask to final bias and uniformity results.

A commercially available triode dry etching system was used for the work.The self-induced dc bias voltage can be selected regardless of the applied rf power.The effect of variable self-induced dc bias versus applied rf power is presented for selectivity, upper and lower electrode interactions, and etch rate uniformity.Characterization by the use of spectroscopy is also presented, showing changes due to varying the self-induced dc bias at a constant rf power.